![A old book with browned edges](https://tfana.org/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/rare-book-roomIMG_4676-scaled-qd50hkwxnkzbwayyihg186m3nku1nmfpnn3x5ksxj8.jpg)
NEH Summer Institute
NEH Summer Institute
Teaching Shakespeare’s Plays through Scholarship and Performance 2024:
“Nature, Culture, and the Grounds of Good Government in Shakespeare’s Plays”
Theatre for a New Audience, through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, hosts K-12 educators from across the country for our 11th NEH Summer Institute, Teaching Shakespeare’s Plays through Scholarship and Performance.
Under the guidance of leading Shakespeare scholars and theatre practitioners, participants will investigate the theme of our 2024 Institute, “Nature, Culture, and the Grounds of Good Government in Shakespeare’s Plays,” through two Shakespeare plays: As You Like it and King Lear.
Designed primarily for middle and high school teachers (grades 6-12), but open to educators of all grade levels, the Institute introduces an interdisciplinary approach to exploring text-based scholarship, contextual and original source material, language, and performance. The Institute offers a holistic approach to:
- deepening teachers’ familiarity with primary source material and historical context,
- enriching their understanding of both textual analysis and performance (and the relationship between the two), and
- enhancing their ability to identify and teach common themes across Shakespeare’s plays (as well as other texts).
The two-week Institute allows time for an in-depth analysis of two plays; careful examination of primary and secondary source material; extended interaction with faculty and guest speakers/artists; familiarization with multiple methods of interpretation and practice; exploration of different points of view; and time for assignments, discussion, group dialogue, and break-out sessions on classroom application.
By focusing on both textual analysis and performance, the Institute gives teachers multiple entry points to illuminate meaning for themselves and for their students, regardless of age level or prior familiarity with Shakespeare.
![A large building with one side all glass windows](https://tfana.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2014DS22.403-1RE-DavidSundberg-Esto_300px.jpg)
Polonsky Shakespeare Center, home to the NEH Summer Institute
![NEH Institute participants examine a First Folio of Shakespeare's works at Columbia University's Rare Book Room, under the guidance of Shakespeare scholars.](https://tfana.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/rare-book-roomIMG_4733_good-1024x716.jpg)
Institute participants examine a First Folio of Shakespeare’s works at Columbia University’s Rare Book Room, under the guidance of Shakespeare scholars
Essential Information
Date
July 15-26, 2024
Location
Polonsky Shakespeare Center,
Brooklyn, NY
Host institution
Theatre for a New Audience
Application Deadline
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 (by 11:59 PM PST)
Deadline To Accept/decline
Friday, April 19, 2024
Eligibility
The Institute is designed for middle and high school teachers (grades 6-12) but open to K-5 educators as well. Educators working in all subject areas are encouraged to apply. See “How to Apply” for additional eligibility information.
How to apply
TFANA’s NEH Summer Institute is made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
![Seal of the National Endowment for the Humanities](https://tfana.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/NEH-Preferred-Seal820-1024x464.jpg)
How to Apply
Learn more on how to apply for our NEH Summer Institute.
Content, Format & Schedule
Content
The curriculum for “Nature, Culture, and the Grounds of Good Government in Shakespeare’s Plays” focuses on how ideas about nature impact views of good government at the individual, family, and political levels.
Examples include: the ethical and material claims of the non-human environment; the interdependence among beings of various species; the significance, in a status culture, of biologically inherited qualities; the affordances and burdens of “civilization;” the interrelated spheres of family, community, and state; and the importance of education and cultivation.
In our own time, these issues centrally inform debates about the responsibility of governments for climate change and its remediation; the disproportionate impact of natural disasters on poor and marginalized populations; the effects of capitalism and deregulation on the distribution of natural resources; and the systemic racism informing health crises. Definitions of the “natural” (or the “unnatural”) have also been central in granting or denying certain political rights and opportunities based on race, gender, or sexuality.
In addition to the Shakespeare texts themselves, Institute faculty will introduce diverse points of view, drawing on recent exciting work on ecology and ecocriticism; early modern political, social, and familial history and thought; and gender, sexuality and critical race studies. By focusing on a tragedy that is regularly taught in high schools, and a comedy that is less familiar but accessible and enjoyable, the Institute aims to create a manageable intellectual framework for exploring common themes that will be useful for teachers in their classrooms across a range of texts.
The approach provides a bridge between scholarly analysis of text and context and the challenges of performance in which artists must make creative choices about the use of language.
Format
The Institute runs for two weeks from 10:00am until 5:00pm Monday through Friday at Polonsky Shakespeare Center unless otherwise noted. Morning and afternoon sessions focus on the academic and theatrical considerations embedded in the plays under investigation. Scholars and teaching artists work together to plan daily activities that reinforce each other’s work, creating a seamless interface between scholarly and creative investigations. In addition, lunches and evening activities offer participants access to other scholars, guest experts, and theatre professionals. Evening assignments prepare participants for the following day’s discussions, and theatre outings provide a further basis for discussion of the concepts participants are learning in class. During the Institute, participants will attend two Shakespeare (or other relevant) productions as a group, preceded by a dinner and discussion of the play.
During the first seven days of the Institute, Professors Julie Crawford and Mario DiGangi will ground participants in the basics of sound scholarly research and theatrical practice, while theatre practitioners Krista Apple and Claudia Zelevansky will work with participants on the challenges of interpretation and performance that arise from deep scholarly analysis of text. In the last three days, participants will take on roles from professional theatre (director, actor, dramaturg, designer, etc) to focus intensely on incorporating what they have learned as they prepare for final scene performances on the last day of the Institute.
Schedule
The 2024 Schedule is forthcoming. For a sense of what to expect:
Questions
Contact us at education@tfana.org
![Performance faculty leads participants in a session inside the theatre at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center. She stands onstage with arms stretched, surrounded by participants seated onstage, with a view of the theatre seats behind them.](https://tfana.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/kristaIMG_4459_good_copy-1024x682.jpg)
Participants rehearse onstage in the 299-seat mainstage theatre at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, which brings together the design of an Elizabethan courtyard theatre with state-of-the-art modern theatre technology
![Participants stand in a circle onstage with arms raised, engaging in a warm-up activity led by performance faculty.](https://tfana.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/rehearsal-IMG_5069_good-1024x659.jpg)
Meet the Faculty
Scholars
Julie Crawford & Mario DigangiJulie Crawford is Mark van Doren Professor of Humanities in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She has published widely on authors ranging from Shakespeare and Sidney to Clifford and Wroth, and on topics ranging from the history of reading to the history of sexuality. She is the author of a book about cheap print and the English reformation entitled Marvelous Protestantism (Johns Hopkins UP, 2005), and Mediatrix: Women, Politics and Literary Production in Early Modern England (Oxford UP, 2014). She is currently serving as an editor for The Oxford Handbook on Margaret Cavendish, The Norton Anthology of English Literature (The Seventeenth Century), and a special issue of ELR on Margaret Cavendish and Lucy Hutchinson. Her current book project is entitled “Margaret Cavendish’s Political Career.”
Mario DiGangi, Professor of English at Lehman College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, is the author of The Homoerotics of Early Modern Drama (Cambridge, 1997), Sexual Types: Embodiment, Agency, and Dramatic Character from Shakespeare to Shirley (Pennsylvania, 2011), and The Winter’s Tale: Language and Writing (Arden, 2022). He has edited Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Barnes & Noble) and The Winter’s Tale (Bedford Shakespeare: Text and Contexts). In 2016 he served as President of the Shakespeare Association of America. He is currently working on a project exploring sexuality and race in Shakespeare.
K-12 Specialist
Maria Fahey
Maria Fahey is a member of the faculty at Friends Seminary, where she has taught English to middle and high-school students for more than thirty years. She is the author of Metaphor and Shakespearean Drama: Unchaste Signification, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Shakespeare’s Globe Book Award. Dr. Fahey has written a series of student guides to reading Shakespeare’s plays. It has been her privilege to work with other teachers, most recently at the Taktse School in Sikkim, India.
Theatre Practitioners
Krista Apple & Claudia ZelevanskyKrista Apple is an Assistant Professor of Acting at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, where she teaches Acting, Voice and Speech, and Shakespeare/Verse Drama. She is also a professional actor and acting coach, and a member of the Actors’ Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA). She is a member of the resident acting company at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, where she has performed in numerous contemporary and classical productions, including some of her favorite Shakespeare plays – HAMLET (Gertrude), ROMEO & JULIET (Nurse), and MACBETH (Witch/Lady MacDuff). She is also a certified Reiki practitioner, a running enthusiast, and a proud mom. You can learn more at www.kristaapple.com.
Claudia Zelevansky has over 20 years of experience as a director, producer, educator, and consultant and holds a Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University in Performance Studies and a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the Yale School of Drama.
Claudia was the Associate Artistic Director of the Dallas Theater Center until 2004. She has taught acting and directing at Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, Northwestern University, CUNY’s Queens College, Bard College, CalArts, and at Oberlin College, mentoring hundreds of students. Directing work includes more than 35 productions in NYC and across the country, including post at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Flea, The Public Theater, the Alliance Theatre (Atlanta), and Dallas Theater Center. Claudia made her directorial film debut with The Cold Snap, which had its premiere at the Los Angeles International Film Festival in 2010.
After attending Columbia University’s Arts Administration program, Claudia became Senior Associate at Martin Vinik Planning for the Arts, a planning firm that specializes in capital projects, curriculum design, and strategic planning for the arts. At MVPA, Claudia worked with a wide range of domestic and international museums, theatres, schools, and arts districts to improve planning, programming, and overall solvency.
Since 2020, she has been the Executive Director of the Mercury Store in Brooklyn, NY, an organization devoted to developing the work of theatre directors, devisers, and choreographers.
Project Director
Lindsay TannerProject Director Lindsay Tanner is the Director of Education at Theatre for a New Audience. Her commitment to arts programming that advances a just, equitable, and liberatory education system is informed by her experience as a program leader, teacher, teaching artist, and theatre practitioner. Before joining TFANA, Lindsay served as Senior Program Manager for Urban Arts Partnership’s Everyday Arts for Special Education program, a federally-funded research project investigating arts-based professional development for teachers of students with disabilities; completed graduate work with Sesame Workshop and VSA Massachusetts (now Open Door Arts); directed the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare Summer Camp; co-founded the Accidental Shakespeare Company; and served as the founding Head of Expressive Arts at Academics West. Lindsay has facilitated workshops for educators and artists nationally and internationally on embodied inquiry, applied theatre, and collaborative artmaking for social change. Lindsay holds an M.Ed. in Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.F.A. in Theatre, with a double-major in Anthropology, from NYU. She currently serves on the board of Emit Theatre and the steering committee of the Arts for All Abilities Consortium.
Stipend
Two-week Residential Institute Stipend: $2,200
NEH-funded institutes are professional development programs that convene K-12 educators or higher education faculty from across the nation in order to deepen and enrich their understanding of a variety of topics in the humanities and enrich their capacity for effective scholarship and teaching.
Stipends are intended to compensate participants for their time commitment and to help defray the cost of participation, which may include expenses such as travel, lodging, and meals. Stipend amounts are determined by NEH based on the duration and format of the program.
The NEH provides $2,200 in stipend funding for each participant in a two-week residential summer institute.
The stipend amount is fixed and is taxable as income.
How to Apply
Learn more on how to apply for our NEH Summer Institute.
Housing & Logistics
In 2024, our Summer Scholars will have the option to stay at the St. George Residence, a student dormitory located in Brooklyn Heights, which is one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in all of New York City, full of great coffee shops, restaurants, and markets. Located steps away from the 2/3 subway stop at Clark St, the Residence provides easy access to the Polonsky Shakespeare Center and to Manhattan, which can both be reached in 15 minutes or less by subway.
We hold a block of rooms for our Summer Scholars to book, to ensure you have a convenient and affordable local option available to you, but you are of course welcome to make your own housing arrangements.
Double occupancy and single occupancy rooms, with an optional linen package, are available from July 14-27, 2024.
2024 Pricing
- For a double occupancy (shared room): $500 per person per week
- For a single occupancy (no roommate): $750 per week
There is also a one-time $25 membership fee per person
2024 Amenities
- 24-hour security
- Room & residency key-card entry
- All rooms furnished with student furniture, including bed, desk, chair, and under-bed dresser (optional linen package available at an additional charge)
- All rooms include private bathroom and closet
- All rooms include refrigerator and microwave in room; communal stoves & ovens are available in building (please note: all kitchenware, including dishes, utensils, and cookware, must be supplied by resident)
- Air conditioning
- Wireless internet access and TV with cable package
- Laundromat in building (card-operated)
- Communal lounges and study rooms
- Fitness center in the building
- ATM & vending machines in building
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“The TFANA-NEH summer seminar was HANDS-DOWN THE BEST PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE I have had in my 10+ years of high school teaching. The work–both in scholarship and performance–was challenging, invigorating, relevant, and applicable…I will bring back these approaches this year, not only in my Shakespeare unit but also in our study of literature and cultures in other areas.”
“Overall, this was an amazing experience that both REINVIGORATED MY PASSION FOR SCHOLARSHIP and inspired me to take back the strategies and approaches the instructors used to get us on our feet and into Shakespeare’s language.”
![NEH Summer institute logo](https://tfana.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NEH-Horizontal-Stk-Seal-Transparent820-300x214-1.png)
TFANA’s NEH Summer Institute is made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.
Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.